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Atlas Bases are underground sites scattered across Vesper, the planet Railborn takes place on. They were built by Atlas, a technology corporation that installed many bases across the planet, and served as research hubs before being abandoned. Players break into them to recover the plants needed to unlock technology.
Atlas
Atlas is a technology corporation described by the developers as evil. Its bases are spread across Vesper, and the wider story behind the company has not been told yet. The developers have said only that the story involves Atlas and that they are holding the rest back, so the corporation's history, motives, and fate are open questions rather than settled lore.
What Is Inside
The bases stopped being research hubs a long time ago and have sat abandoned since. What survives inside them is plant life, and those plants are required to unlock technology, which ties the bases directly into the motes and biomes progression loop rather than leaving them as optional scenery.
Reaching that plant life means going deep underground, and the bases are described as dangerous and challenging. The developers frame entering one as a real risk to the player's life rather than a detour.
Preparing for a Run
The advice the developers give for a base run is to prepare before leaving the train:
Preparation | Why It Matters |
|---|---|
Full backpack of food | Bases run deep underground, so a run takes the player away from the train and its stores for an extended stretch. See Survival Mechanics. |
Upgraded tools | Recovering what is inside a base is gated behind tool capability, so tool upgrades come before a deep run. |
The developers' phrasing around preparation is loose and partly tongue in cheek, so treat the food and tool advice as the concrete part and the rest as flavour until a base run is documented in more detail.
Finding a Base
Base locations are not always obvious, and the developers name this as a deliberate reason to keep exploring rather than only riding the rails. There are two ways to turn one up:
Method | Detail |
|---|---|
Exploring on foot | Leaving the train and covering ground directly, the same activity that opens track bypasses. See Tracks. |
Map Towers | Towers reached in the world fill in part of the map and surface nearby points of interest. See Information Towers. |
Vesperite
Vesperite is an ore found on Vesper. Its nodes often sit on the tall ceilings of tunnels, which is one of the reasons players build their train upward: a taller train reaches resources that cannot be reached on foot. See Train Building for how train height works.
Notes
Atlas Bases were introduced in the developers' August 2026 update. As with the rest of the game's systems, the developers note that any feature they write about might change before and during Early Access.
In the World
Bases show up on the player's heads-up display as a Research Base marker with the remaining distance in metres, which is consistent with the developers' description of them as former research hubs. Official screenshots show their interiors as multi-level industrial spaces lit in green and amber, with catwalks, sealed circular doors, crates stencilled with the Atlas name, and improvised timber structures built inside long after the original occupants left.